Unexpected Visitor
by Stormrace
Summary: Work is slow, life is calm, Wanda West expects a quiet evening without anything to bother her, Central City being quiet and nobody trying to destroy the world for the past couple weeks. However, does life ever go as anybody plans? An injured Batman certainly wasn't in the plans, and certainly not a welcome change.


"Yeah, I mean, talk about a good day!" Wanda pinched the phone between her head and neck as she sorted through her keys, "With how quiet things have gotten, I've got my fingers crossed that homicides, assaults, and crime in general, will start to become extinct in Central. No, I've got no plans tonight. Ha, as if! I only ever get asked out by jerks."

She stopped speaking as she walked into the kitchenette and began unpacking the bag of groceries, listening to her friend on the other side of the line.

"The red one makes you look the slimmest. Why?" she paused to listen to the answer to her question, "Another guy? Really? After what happened last time? I'm not judging! I'm just saying that-"

"Yeah, as if he's going to notice me when he's so hung up on the Flash," she turned and started to go in the direction of the tv, only to stop. There was blood on her floor, only a few droplets, and it had certainly not been there before she left for work. Someone either was, or had been, in her apartment. She brought the lipstick taser from her pocket and advanced deeper into her apartment, towards the ajar door of her bathroom.

"Hm? Yeah, I'm okay. Sorry..." she crept up to the door of the bathroom and paused, feeling some fear creep into her mind as she wondered what she would find on the other side of the door. A desperate criminal? A dead body in her bathtub?

She took in a deep breath, and shoved the door open all of the way, "What the-! Bats!"

" _Wanda? Wanda, are you okay? What's going on?"_ her friend was shouting over the phone.

"Hm? Oh, nothing. I just... found a bat inside my apartment. Gotta get it out. Talk to you later, bye," she hung up, "What the hay are you doing here! In my bathroom!"

"I need a- a-," Wanda could hear Batman breathing heavily.

"Are you all right?" she flipped on the light. Her sink was covered in blood, there was a red hand print on the mirror of the medicine cabinet, the tiling was really going to need to be scrubbed good seven times before it would look normal again, and several of her nice, new towels were soaked in scarlet. Those weren't the parts that phased her, though. That part was that Batman sitting on her floor, shirtless, "Oh, man! What did you do? Never mind, I don't want to know. I'll get my med kit."

She turned and opened the floor level vent and pulled out a duffle-bag full of medical supplies. She wasn't going to leave them all in the open where anyone could see them, but she was a little surprised that Batman hadn't found them on his own, so obvious and accessible as they were.

"I should call J'onn," she reached for her watch, only to have her wrist crushed in a painful grip.

"Don't!"

"Okay! Okay!" she conceded, "No calling J'onn. Please don't break my wrist!"

Batman released her. She rubbed the aching limb for only a moment, and then dug into the medical supplies, though she was not entirely certain what she would need, because she had no idea what kind of wound it was.

"Is it deep?"

"Yes."

"Clean?"

"No."

"Man, I should take you to the hospital!" she exclaimed as she started to work, "But I won't! It's just that, I'm not a doctor! I don't- I'm not sure what I need to do!"

"What would you do for yourself?"

"Call J'onn and pass out!" she leaned in to take a closer look at the wound, only to feel sick when she got close enough to get a good look, "Oh, man! Have you seen this? I've got to call someone!"

"Wanda, no one can know I'm here!" she'd never heard so much pain in his voice before.

"Look at it, Bats!" she wasn't going to cave so easily when it was inflamed and a horrible smell was rising from it, "I have no idea on how to deal with something like this! I only know the bare basics! You need to see a professional!"

"Wanda, just trust me. I can't see a professional!"

"Well what am I supposed to do? It was clearly poisoned!"

"It's a low-grade poison, at best," Batman informed her, and held up a bloody, jagged blade, "I have no doubt you'll be able to isolate it and get me the antidote before it fully takes hold."

Wanda glared, but she started working on the wound without further argument. It was times like these where she was infinitely glad that she had superspeed, and she could use it to speedily, yet still carefully, bandage Batman up enough so he wouldn't bleed out while she worked on something to counteract the poison.

"I should leave you here," she sat back on her heels, "But, knowing my luck, I'd get delayed on my way back. Man, I hope no one is down in the garage."

"The garage?" Batman asked as Wanda disappeared and reappeared with a men's shirt, men's jeans and a men's leather jacket in her hands.

"You don't expect me to drag you all the way across town, do you?" she turned while he pulled the pants on, having already seen enough of the bat without clothes, but she helped him with the shirt and jacket, wincing and apologizing all the way through whenever Batman hissed in pain.

"Oh man, I feel so bad for this!" she pulled his arm over her shoulders and half-lead, half-dragged him towards the door. Each step must have been like fire for him, but there really was nothing she could do to help with that. She needed to bring him along to make certain that he would be there later on, and that he wouldn't die because she got sidetracked.

Her car was, thankfully, parked right beside the elevator and it looked as if she was getting him out without anyone seeing him. But how long could it possibly last? She didn't know, but she was hopeful it would last longer than her pulling out into the street and driving halfway there. She hoped that Captain Cold and the rest would stay completely quiet for just this one evening.

They arrived at the lab without problem, but then she was faced with a very serious problem. How was she going to smuggle a man twice her size into a building that had security that had recently been updated to impressive levels? She could sneak in by herself, did so on many occasions, but that would be supremely difficult lugging such a large person around.

"Any ideas... oh," Batman was sleeping. Sleeping! That left it entirely up to her. She looked around the nearly empty parking lot and her eyes landed on one of the trucks that was delivering supplies. She couldn't drag him all the way into the building, but maybe through the door and to the nearest blind spot? It was possible, even beyond probable. She just had to time it well enough so none of the workmen or security guards noticed her.

"Seven... Eight... Nine..." she had nine seconds to make her plan happen. Plenty She had certainly worked with less before.

"One..." she picked him up Batman fireman style.

"Two..." she sped to the door.

"Three..." she was inside and just below the camera.

"Four..." she slide her ID through the lock and opened the door to her lab. She quickly punched in two different codes, one to shut down the alarm and the other to direct the cameras play the feed showing her working late, but not doing anything suspicious. Nothing suspicious like, oh, smuggling Bruce Wayne into a restricted area to run tests on a suspiciously bloody blade. She would be in so much trouble if someone happened to see her!

She dumped Batman against a wall and got to work.

* * *

Watching Wanda work when she thought no one was looking was truly a sight worth seeing. Looking through the tiniest of slits in his eyes, he watched as she sped from one place to another in a blur, pausing every so often in one place so he could hear a jumbled, steady stream of gibberish flow from her barely visible mouth. Moving so fast and doing so much, she didn't look the least bit fazed or tired as she went about. It was mere minutes before she sat down and started tapping her finger on the desk like a jackhammer, her eyes narrowed as she just sat quietly.

"Isolate the gene..." she muttered, sitting forward in her seat and beginning to scribble something down and send papers full of equations flying everywhere, "Accelerate metabolism to optimum speed..."

She was suddenly up and she became a blur again, but he did not miss the vials of blood that suddenly appeared on a counter for a moment, even if they were only there for a second. He frowned in suspicion, knowing that it was not from him, wondering what she was doing with it.

"Alright," she appeared in front of him with a syringe full of an odd coloured liquid, "I really hope this works. 'Cause I don't wanna have to explain to people why Batman died in my lab."

He passed out.

"Bats?" he began to become aware of the unfamiliar bed and Wanda talking in the kitchenette, "Nope, haven't seen him. Why?"

He rolled over and looked at the clock. Or, where the clock would have been if Flash's cellphone had been in the charging dock.

"Really? Since when?" he heard the sink running, "You know Batman, Supes. He's probably chasing down some lead that he deems necessary to take care of on his own. He'll probably reappear in a few days, as grumpy as ever."

He heard an odd tapping sound that he could not place. It was familiar, yet very strange at the same time.

"Hold on! Gotta go! Hero stuff!" there was a loud whirring noise and he saw a streak of red shoot across the room and out the window. He sprang up and dashed forward, completely out of instinct, and let out a sigh of relief to see that there was a fire escape.

He turned and walked back to the bed, feeling exhausted, as if he'd gone for a week fighting without rest. It was strange, but no stranger than when he came to a startling realization. He didn't feel any pain! No pain whatsoever! He looked down and pulled up the shirt he still had no idea why Wanda owned, and saw only a thin scar where the wound had been. What in the name of sanity had Wanda done?!

She was gone for a good hour, leaving Bruce to rest and take a good look at her home. It was much more tidy than most would expect from Flash, though rather empty may have been more appropriate wording. There was the bed, the nightstand, high definition tv on an entertainment stand, speakers and a sofa. It looked like a place where someone crashed, but did not really live. There were a few pictures on the nightstand, a magazine or two scattered about the room to make it look like someone did frequent the apartment, but truly not much.

She flopped face down. directly onto the sofa when she got back, breathing heavily and shaking like a leaf. Her boots looked soaked through, and the rest of the costume did not look entirely dry either. Was this how she always returned from a fight? Or had it been a particularly brutal experience?

"One day, Captain Cold is going to stay behind bars until he is finished doing his time!" Wanda pointed up to punctuate her declaration, "Just as soon as I can learn how to build an impenetrable prison to keep him in! Maybe tomorrow."

"Are you hurt?" Wanda rolled over and sat up, pulling her mask back so he could see her split lip and the dark bruises decorating her face. She grinned as she looked up at him, bright and cheerful, though her face was rather pale.

"Nothing serious," there were circles underneath her eyes, "Just let me pass out for a couple hours and use the list on the counter call in takeout for when I wake up. Money's under the note. I'll be fine. Help yourself to anything in the kitchen."

She flopped back down and soft snores escaped her still form within minutes. With nothing better to do, Bruce went off in search of his suit. The bathroom was a surprise, in the fact that it looked like it had no been the sight of a messy scene mere hours earlier. The smell of bleach and drying paint were heavy, attesting to the work that had been put into destroying all implicating evidence. His suit wasn't anywhere to be seen or found.

The kitchenette was a mess, though only because it looked like Wanda had been making breakfast when she bolted from the building. His suit was, unsurprisingly, not there either.

Digging through her closets seemed like the wrong thing to do, since she had taken him in and saved his life, without knowing exactly what kind of trouble he was mixed up in, but he needed his suit! He had to get to work! The hall closet was full of various odds and ends, a lot he recognized from her last birthday, but his suit was not there. The closet beside her bed was a mess of chaos, no rhyme or reason to the haphazardly hung up items of clothing, from jeans and cotton t-shirts to an expensive designer gown, shoes carelessly tossed onto the bottom and a large selection of hats and sheets tangled on the top shelf. Still no suit.

After a quick and thorough search of the apartment, he settled down to wait for Wanda to wake up, wondering what she possibly could have done with it. He had always known she was smarter than she looked, at least when she was in the red suit, but he had not given her credit for being able to keep his suit from even him.

He did as she asked and called in the list of takeout, after realizing he wasn't going to get anything done until Wanda woke up, and flipped on the tv to see what was going on in Central City, see if there was any new developments he had missed.

There was a report on the fight that had happened earlier, a few minutes of video showing Flash trying to keep from slipping while she seemed to formulate a plan of attack. He didn't see how she did it, but soon she had the captain tied up and was giving out another interview, grinning broadly and laughing at the bad jokes and puns the reporter was making. The flirting going on between the two was almost sickening, a little surprising too.

Flipping to another channel, there was a talk show where people were debating on whether or not Flash was good for the city or not. There were reruns of soap operas, documentaries, advertisements, and just about everything that could possibly be on television. He spent more time flipping through the channels, irritated that there was nothing good on, than actually watching anything.

Evening was coming on when the doorbell rang and the food started to arrive, and Wanda was awake and beginning to stretch when he came back. She yawned and rubbed a hand over her much less bruised face, and then sat back comfortably.

"You still here, Bats?" she asked, "I thought you would've hightailed it out of here hours ago."

"Where's my suit?"

"Your... Oh!" she jumped up and tossed the cushions off the sofa. There, neatly folded and looking freshly washed, was his batsuit, "Sorry, I forgot. I thought you'd find it while I was working. I really didn't mean to fall asleep on it."

He took the suit and unfolded the garments to see the damage, only to find just one, small seam. The blood was gone, almost as if it had never been there at all, and it was stitched neatly, almost like an expert. He glanced towards Wanda, but she had dashed over to the kitchenette and was digging into the food.

"Did you forget to pay the delivery guys?" she held up the cash she'd left on the counter, frowning deeply.

"No. It's on me this time. Call it a thank you for your help."

"You really didn't have to do that," her frown turned disapproving, "I can afford my own food."

"I know, but I owe you something after putting you out so unexpectedly."

"Are you kidding? My apartment is practically a revolving door for anyone who needs a place to crash! I've had people living with me for weeks on end, and they don't owe me anything! So, you are the last person that would owe me something for something so small!"

"You saved my life."

"And you've saved mine before. Nothing to get worked up over."

"How was your blood involved?"

"What?"

"I saw the vials, what did you do?"

"I isolated my healing gene into a serum and injected it in you. As I said, nothing to get worked up over," she picked up a fork and started eating in earnest, keeping her head low. For someone who thrived off of spotlight when she saved the world, she seemed abnormally adverse to having him thank her for taking in in, in such bizarre circumstances.

"Let's just forget it, okay?" she suddenly shrugged it off and shot him another grin, "Hungry? Please, help yourself. I hate eating alone."

"I've got to get moving," Batman declined, he watched her turn her back and silently slipped from the room.

Wanda turned back around, and rolled her eyes to see him gone. That was just like him. She wished she knew what he was up to in her city, why he ended up on her floor during the early evening and took up her entire night, but it was doubtful he would tell her anytime soon.

The End.


End file.
